I'm losing brain cells reading this read. Feel free to post awesome WC advice elsewhere and let us have our fun.
How to not suck a** as a Republic in the Age of Absolutism: A guide
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Besides which, I see a big fat -40 absolutism in red. I guess nothing is a penalty if you rationalize hard enough.
I do not understand in what way this applies to Admin Efficiency, since it addresses just about every bottleneck there is when it comes into play. Warscore Cost of larger nations, Aggressive Expansion, Paper and Bird mana, Relationship slots (since the integrations are faster), Overextension... It will occasionally even make winning wars easier/faster if you don't plan to fully annex the target, since they will accept an identical peacedeal at lower WS / higher enthusiasm.
Honestly, unless you would be able to get to a point where you can fully annex a fully blobbed Ottoman for 10% WS, I don't see a point at which AE becomes less valuable.
To be honest, I started this at about half a fifth of Jameson and thought the OP was saying that the culture switching shenanigans was the only way to get enough AE to do a WC. I'm actually really sorry for dragging this on so long.
What I mean is that there is a number of administrative efficiency where you need this much to finish the campaign goals, and after that number, any more administrative efficiency is just a bonus that makes things easier, like stacking more discipline. As long as a republic can get as much as they need, then losing out on the extra is sub-optimal but isn't "bad". Not in the way that moving your capital to Delhi is bad, at least. It doesn't actually hurt your run it just helps less than it could.
Fundamentally, I agree with what you're saying and it doesn't contradict the point I'm trying to make. The "bonus" I was referring to is the extra absolutism past what is needed in the campaign to finish the goal. Taking a smaller bonus only looks like a penalty if juxtaposed against a larger bonus quantitatively, right? But World Conquest (and other conquest goals) is a binary condition. Any set of bonuses that allow for the completion of that goal is on par with any other set in the category. That doesn't mean there isn't room for optimization within the category, as clearly having more administrative efficiency would be optimal, however I wouldn't call suboptimal strategies that meet the goal bad.
Else why not have a thread about "How not to suck as Busoga" where you advise restarting as France? France is a more optimal choice than most countries, does that make not picking France bad?
That's disingenuous false equivalency. "how to not suck at very hard" and advise picking very easy. Anyone can tell these "advice" make no sense.
You want to think Republics aren't bad, and honestly I can empathize. People want Republics to not suck because it used to be the superior, limited choice. It used to be not every tag could be Republics, and eventually most can be but with specific Idea focus. And Re-election was very powerful before Monarchies have disinherit. And then Absolutism was the final nail in the coffin that nerfed Republics to irrelevance. Government Reforms at one point shed some hope that it would at least elevate Republics back into an actual, valid, meaningful choice to counteract Monarchy but that didn't deliver.
Choosing to play a republic instead of a monarchy is exactly as valid as choosing an African minor over a European major.
And let's not forget that Pirate Republics have very good flags. That's a bonus you can't get with a Monarchy.
And if you have the right culture you get to have "Doge" as a ruler title and pretend your ruler is a very good boye.
Republics have a lot to offer, truly.
IF republics where to emulate history they would have to be a government that is the strongest in the age of discovery, losing strenght and becoming the weakest in the age of absolutism and close to the strongest again in the last era.
Thats because democracies also evolved during the time period and benefited greatly from new technologies and thinkings that happened during the time period.
Right now we have a government that already starts weak and get weaker as the game goes on without adding much value.
But givin absolutism to republics is not the way to do it. A republic full of absolutism is just a strong dictatorship and that goes against the main principle of being a republic.
I really think the reforms are more than enough to fix republics, but they need to work different from what they do in monarchs.
So you can give give more power and control its evolution speed better.
But im sure of one thing. Republics should not be the best route for WC´s. They are more fit for tall games and control of strategic parts of the world and should be tailored mostly for this kind of scenario. (Giving another way to play instead of Monarch with extra steps).
Theocracys are another form of government that need some love too.
Thats because democracies also evolved during the time period and benefited greatly from new technologies and thinkings that happened during the time period.
Right now we have a government that already starts weak and get weaker as the game goes on without adding much value.
But givin absolutism to republics is not the way to do it. A republic full of absolutism is just a strong dictatorship and that goes against the main principle of being a republic.
I really think the reforms are more than enough to fix republics, but they need to work different from what they do in monarchs.
So you can give give more power and control its evolution speed better.
But im sure of one thing. Republics should not be the best route for WC´s. They are more fit for tall games and control of strategic parts of the world and should be tailored mostly for this kind of scenario. (Giving another way to play instead of Monarch with extra steps).
Theocracys are another form of government that need some love too.
Democracies? Can you name examples during EU 4 timeframe beside emergent USA? Just out of curiosity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy#Early_Modern_Era_milestones
Basically the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth before it was destroyed (Well in a lot of terms it was the "first democracy" with 10% of the population already able to vote since 1444 ^^, French Revolution, Haiti, Corsica, Argentina (1816), rise of social movements asking for democracy
All that happened before EU4 ending in 1822.
If we look for republics. As one example the Republic of Venice lasted until Napoleon in 1797. Being one of the most stable governments in history. There was also others.
While those republics where not full democracys they also evolved along the centurys.
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I think this is an issue with the Absolutism mechanic more than with republics specifically - after all, Great Britain was far from leading the pack in absolutism, but it did very well for itself by the end of the game period.
Really, even making Absolutism all about easier conquest is a little odd - I would think it would have more to do with how you rule your own states than with taking new territories. There's a reason that all the ways of gaining Absolutism relate to rulership, rather than annexation.
